1. Field
Embodiments relate to the determination of Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) level for storage of datasets.
2. Background
In certain computing environments, a computational device such as a storage controller may control access to storage for one or more host computational devices that may be coupled to the storage controller over a network. A storage management application that executes in the storage controller may manage a plurality of storage devices, such as disk drives, tape drives, flash drives, direct access storage devices (DASD), etc., that are coupled to the storage controller. A host computational device may send Input/Output (I/O) commands to the storage controller and the storage controller may execute the I/O commands to read data from the storage devices or write data to the storage devices.
Data is stored in physical storage volumes of storage devices. Logical storage volumes are generated by the storage controller to maintain the data stored in the physical storage volumes. Each logical storage volume may logically represent data stored in one or more physical storage volumes. Data is physically stored in the physical storage volumes and logically represented in the logical storage volumes. The storage controller manages and controls access to the logical and physical storage volumes.
Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical disk drives into one or more logical units (e.g., logical storage volumes) for achieving data redundancy or performance improvement or both. Data may be distributed across the disk drives in one of many ways depending on the required level of redundancy and performance. The different schemes, or data distribution layouts, are referred to by the word “RAID” followed by a number, for example RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10, etc. Each RAID level provides a different balance among the key goals: reliability, availability, performance, and capacity. RAID levels greater than RAID 0 provide protection against unrecoverable sector read errors, as well as against failures of whole physical drives.
A storage controller may configure disks controlled by the storage controller into one or more RAID arrays. For example, a storage controller may configure a plurality of disks to form a first set of RAID arrays corresponding to a RAID 0 level, a second set of RAID arrays corresponding to a RAID 1 level, and a third set of RAID arrays corresponding to a RAID 5 level, etc.